Michael Wilmington

Instead of an escape from Hollywood’s cookie-cutter plots, it’s a retreat back into them, only the sexes have been changed.

It's a real shame that most new boxing movies try to copy the crowd-pleasing, sentiment-choked tactics of "Rocky" rather than the stark drama of "Raging Bull" or the realistic grit of "On the Waterfront" and "The Harder They Fall." Against the Ropes is only the latest sorry example. The sad thing is that, with this real-life story and subject, it could have been a contender.

Cheerful but mind-numbing.

The movie has an absurd script, fueled by that current B-movie staple, the idiot plot--a plot that proceeds only because all, or most, of the characters, act like idiots.

To say this movie's premise is bonkers is putting it mildly.

This is one more "yuppie-in-peril" movie, just as slick and empty, manipulative and crude, as most of the rest: all those paranoid pictures bent on scaring us with insane roommates, murderous baby-sitters and killer temps. [5 Apr 1993, p.F3]

This dingy, drab, pointless little movie -- a would-be shamrock shocker about four teen-agers menaced by the Irish super-scamp while renovating a North Dakota farmhouse -- is made without flair or imagination, seemingly enervated by its own bad taste and low intentions. [11 Jan 1993, p.F3]

I can't think of much that might happen on a date evening that could be more annoying than this movie.

Falls flat on its face.

The movie knocks your eyes out, at the same time it dulls the mind’s eye. Ultimately, it’s one more stop in the arcade, beckoning, waiting to soak up time and money.

Technically clever but emotionally bankrupt...it's an almost laughably opportunistic movie.

It may entertain you if you don't mind senseless stories and screaming soundtracks.

Outrageously vapid and overdone movie.

Whatever magic the first two movies may have had -- and it wasn't always that apparent to anyone over the age of 10 -- has long since congealed, like stale pizza. Or mock turtle soup. [22 Mar 1993, p.F9]

The Neverending Story 2 is a story you may want desperately to end. Soon. [11 Feb 1991, p.F10]

A loathsome shocker... Watching it almost turned my stomach.

Sluggish and preposterous, full of violence and cliches.

The movie suffers from a devastating flaw for a comedy: It isn't very funny.

It's a gross parody of its original. And since the original was a gross parody to begin with, the whole thing begins to seem gaseous, overbright, hideously inflated, as if all the bodily function jokes were about to belch it right off the screen.

What isn't scary--or exciting, amusing or fun--is XXX: State of the Union, a movie so preposterous, cliché-packed and over the top that it makes the original "XXX" seem as good as the original "State of the Union."

An odd little ghoul too cleaned up to survive, a bloodless vampire movie that's mostly lifeless as well.

One more movie comedy about how love can turn you into an idiot. And its major flaw, among many others, is that the idiocy takes over the movie.

Instead of coming to a high, flavorful boil, the whole thing quickly overcooks and begins evaporating into hot air.

This is the same dopey save-the-princess-and-kill-everybody revenge plot we always get. The Return of Swamp Thing is enough to drive you back to the comic book stand. Or even the swamp.

Admirers of Rambo III will probably point out that it moves fast. But then, so does a gazelle-and a gazelle has better dialogue and more personality. [25 May 1988, p.1]

The best thing about star and co-writer David Spade's Dickie Roberts, Former Child Star is the end-title sequence, a big, sassy sing-along in which dozens of old TV child stars spew out defiant jokes about their old careers and fame's fickle fingers.

This cautionary thriller about an unjustly imprisoned airline mechanic has a chance to be a canny blend of gutsy melodrama and J'Accuse against the prison system. But, by the end, it has gone as slick and corrupt as the crafty old con (F. Murray Abraham) who advises Tom Selleck's framed Jimmie Rainwood on jail survival. On a fundamental moral level, An Innocent Man is guilty as hell.

Sad excuse for a movie. [4 Aug 1986, p.C6]